


what happiness is to you

by tosca1390



Category: Psy-Changeling - Nalini Singh
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-07
Updated: 2014-03-07
Packaged: 2018-01-14 23:30:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1282675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“This doesn’t make sense,” Sienna complains, staring at the red and purple-lined boxes of chocolate sitting on her coffee table. </i>
</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Lara smiles, shaking her head. “He’s courting you.”</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>“He already did,” Sienna retorts, playing with the end of her braid.</i></p><p> </p><p>Five times Hawke tried to court Sienna, post-mating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what happiness is to you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [empressearwig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/empressearwig/gifts), [magisterequitum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/magisterequitum/gifts).



> Alternate title: HAWKE IS DUMB, PASS IT ALONG. 
> 
> For Jess and Jordan.

*

{1}

Evie’s grin is merciless as she saunters over to Sienna, a giant vase of flowers in her hands. 

“What is that?” Sienna asks, keeping her voice low for respect for her surroundings. The library isn’t the busiest place in the den, but she still understands the need for quiet. Poured over her datapad and her textbooks, she likes the sanctuary-esque atmosphere. Apart from the cool-blue dawns when she wakes before Hawke and watches him sleep, it is the most at peace she feels in her day. 

“Guess,” Evie says with a laugh, setting the vase down in front of Sienna. 

The vibrant oranges and reds and pinks of the flowers – roses, lilies, hydrangea – tease Sienna’s gaze. Setting her datapad down, she leans into sniff. “From Tai?”

“They’re for you, silly,” Evie chides, pushing dark curls over her shoulders. “I’m just the messenger.”

“Who would send me flowers?” Sienna asks blankly, tugging on the end of her braid as it rests over her breast. 

“For a smart woman, you’re pretty slow,” Evie teases. 

Biting her lip, Sienna blinks up at Evie. There is a strange buzz of anticipation through the mating bond, the flame-ice-blue bond that steadies her and strengthens her. “Hawke?” she asks, slightly bewildered. 

“Well, why wouldn’t he?” Evie says, sitting down opposite Sienna. 

“He already has me,” Sienna says slowly, a flush crawling up her throat. “This is unnecessary.”

Evie rolls her eyes, every inch Indigo’s sister. “Come on. The man wants to spoil you. Is that so bad?”

“No,” Sienna replies, tapping her fingertips along the edge of her datapad. But she doesn’t understand it. 

“He’s heading to your quarters, in case you want to say thanks,” Evie says with a sly grin. She touches Sienna’s hand and then flits away. 

Sienna wets her lips and takes the flowers in hand. The glass vase is cool between her palms. She cannot help but smile. 

“Why?” she asks in the privacy of their quarters, taking a few moments to pick the perfect place for her flowers. 

Hawke’s ice-blue eyes fix on her as he sits on the couch. “Why?”

“Why flowers?” she clarifies, setting them on the coffee table at last. 

He grabs her wrist and pulls her gently onto his lap, his face settling into the curve of her neck. “Because you’re my girl,” he murmurs, his skin very hot against hers. 

She is going to tell him that explanation isn’t quite what she was looking for, but his lips find her pulse and she sighs, forgets all about questions for a little while.

{2}

Something cool drapes itself around her throat. Sienna blinks away the sleep and rubs her eyes against the simulated morning light, her fingers going to her neck. 

“Can’t get a thing past you,” Hawke mutters from his seat on the edge of the bed. 

“What?” she asks, voice husky with sleep. 

He kisses her then and runs a hand over her braid. There is so much affection and love suffusing her, from his touch and from his mind and from the bond, she feels enveloped in it. 

“For you,” he murmurs against her lips. And then, he is gone, off to his meeting with Riley and Lucas and Nathan in the city. 

Sienna unclasps a silver chain from her formerly bare throat, gaping at the ruby pendant hanging from her fingertips. Just the color of her hair in sunlight, it is as round and large as a quarter, the flat surfaces reflecting the yellow sunlight. 

“What – “ 

She pauses, wrapping gentle fingers around the necklace. It is so utterly strange to feel so pursued; a different kind of hunt than the mating itself was. She wants to enjoy it, but she truly doesn’t quite understand it. 

When Hawke returns in the evening, she is waiting in their bed wearing only his gift, and nothing else. 

His eyes gleam, the wolf lingering there in the blue depths. “I’d say this isn’t what I had in mind, but I’d be lying,” he murmurs, voice low. His hands go to his tie and strip it off, the dark blue cotton of his shirt next. 

Sienna smiles, her skin quivering with gooseflesh, her nipples tight in the cooling air. “What is it for?” she asks as he crawls into bed naked and she pushes him onto his back, straddling him. 

His hands go to her breasts, fingers plucking at her taut nipples until she shudders with the sensation, clenching her thighs together. “Hmm?”

“The necklace,” she breathes, leaning down to kiss his jaw. The pendant sways away from her breastbone, glimmering in the shadowed air between their bodies. 

He scrapes a nail over the swell of her breast in a way she likes. She arches into the touch with a low sound. “For you.”

But why, she wants to wail. But his mouth claims hers, wet and hot and possessive, and she can barely string thoughts together as his hand slides over her concave belly and between her thighs to cup her sex. 

He’s mouthing at her neck, at the cool metal at her collarbones, and she drags her nails down his chest and sighs. It’s enough, though she still wonders. 

{3}

“This doesn’t make sense,” Sienna complains, staring at the red and purple-lined boxes of chocolate sitting on her coffee table. 

Lara smiles, shaking her head. “He’s courting you.”

“He already _did_ ,” Sienna retorts, playing with the end of her braid. She leans back against the couch next to Lara, pursing her lips together. It isn’t that she doesn’t appreciate the gifts, she does; but there is something odd about it, how he’s going about it. 

Shaking her head, Lara hands Sienna a steaming mug of tea. “No, he really didn’t.”

Sienna tucks her knees under her and cups the tea close to her chest. “We’re mated.”

“Sure, but it was a bumpy, strange ride to that. And I think he feels like you got cheated of the courting aspect,” Lara says in her kind warm way, dark eyes alight with amusement. 

Reaching for the closest box, Sienna opens up the chocolate and takes a deep breath, smiling slightly. “I guess it’s all right,” she says, plucking out a few of the darker pieces before handing Lara the box. “You should take some to Walker and the kids.”

“He’d kill me,” Lara says with a laugh. 

“Walker likes chocolate,” Sienna says, all confusion. 

Shaking her head, Lara pops a milk chocolate bite into her mouth. “Hawke. They’re yours.”

“I’m clearly never going to eat all of them. This is for show,” Sienna says, frowning. And she sends Lara home with two boxes, despite the healer’s protests. When she heads down to the den mess, she has five more in her arms, and nearly knocks into Drew, her distraction is so great. 

“Those belong in your quarters, sweetheart,” Drew says with a grin, his hands warm on her shoulders as he tries to turn her around. 

Glaring, she resists. “If they’re for me, I can share them, can’t I?” she argues. 

Eyes dark, he frowns slightly. “That’s not – that’s not totally the point, Sienna. It’ll look like a rejection.”

Sputtering, she suppresses the urge to throw the chocolates at him. “You do realize how insane that is. We’re already _mated_.”

“Hey, you wanted my advice – “

“I most certainly did not,” she counters. 

He shrugs. “I’m telling you how it is.”

Frustration peaked, Sienna turns on her heel and goes back to their quarters. Fifteen boxes of chocolate sit on the coffee table. She sits on the sofa and stares at them, drumming her fingers against her knees. She can’t figure out what the game is, what the point is – and she doesn’t like being in the dark, beyond logic. 

“I can’t eat all of these,” she says to him over dinner, nodding at the towers of chocolate boxes. 

Hawke swallows his steak and tilts his head. “I wanted to give you a variety of choice.”

“And I appreciate it. I just don’t want them to go to waste,” she says slowly. 

He covers her hand with his on the tabletop and leans over to kiss her. “You liked them. They didn’t go to waste.”

Still, the next day she takes a few boxes to Evie and Maria and to the maternals, a quiet and underhanded act of sharing. She’s sure he knows, but he doesn’t say a word. Perhaps this will be the end of it. 

{4}

The maternals’ quilt circle ends up an escape for Sienna. The women, wolf and human, chat and sew around Sienna, asking her opinion on den matters when appropriate. Sienna rarely thinks she says anything that Nell or Ava hasn’t thought of already, but she knows that isn’t the point. 

When she arrives for her weekly sit-in at the quilt circle on a quiet Tuesday, Nell has a giant white box in her hands, tied off with ruby red ribbon. 

Sienna pauses, glancing around the room. “Um – “

“Special delivery,” Nell says with a grin, holding out the box. 

No card. But, Sienna thinks she knows who’s behind this. It makes her nervous, jumpy. 

“Hawke?” she asks, taking the package and sitting down in the circle. The other maternals peer at her with sly smiles; the unmated wolves look envious. 

“Who else, honey?” Nell says, laughing. “You should open it.”

“Forgive me if I’m wary,” Sienna murmurs, undoing the ribbon with slow methodical precision. She raises the lid just a bit, and blinks. A flush rises on her throat and cheeks quickly. 

“My, my,” Ava says with a smile. 

Sienna slaps the lid back down and swallows. “He has good taste,” she allows, blinking at the maternals surrounding her. 

Nell laughs and pats Sienna’s shoulder. “Of course he does. He picked you, didn’t he?”

The words eat at her the whole time she sits with the maternals, listening and nodding. The box sits at her feet, the black silk and lace lingerie set teasing her from inside. She wets her lips and picks up her quilting square, a useless mess of fabric. But they do not kick her out, and she keeps her ears open, as distracted as she is by Hawke’s gift. 

After the meeting, when she asks Riley where Hawke is, he directs her towards the southeast, near the grotto where they had once kissed and argued. She drops the incriminating box off at their quarters and tracks him, following the pull of him through the mating bond. She looks in on him much less often than he looks in on her, but this time she allows herself the freedom. Her frustration is an ache, gnawing at her nerves. 

When she finds him, the sun is orange-red with the coming sunset, creeping low through the flowering trees. Wild wolves sit with him, keeping watch; but they do not snarl or growl when she approaches. One black-furred wolf approaches her, nuzzles at her hand before loping away. 

“They like you,” Hawke says with a grin, looking at her from his seat on the green grass. 

She keeps her distance, looking at him carefully. “I got your gift.”

The smile sharpens as the wolf lurks in his eyes. “I wish you were wearing it.”

“Hawke, I don’t understand all of this,” she says, shaking her head. “The gifts – I don’t need them. We’ve mated. We’re together.”

His gaze darkens as he rises to his feet. The wild wolves scatter into the deeper edges of the forest. “It isn’t about you needing them. I want to give them to you.”

She scrubs a hand over her face, hair spilling from her braid. “I wish – I wish you’d stop,” she says at last, voice aching. 

The hurt of her words comes directly through the mating bond, and she almost flinches with it. “Why?” he asks, voice a low growl. 

“Because all it does is remind me that we didn’t have that in the first place,” she exclaims, the words tumbling from her tongue unbidden. “You didn’t – you didn’t _want_ to want me, you didn’t _want_ to court me – you fought it for so long, and – “

Shock lines every inch of his face starkly. She can’t bear to look at him any longer. Looking away into the deeper heart of the forest, she pins her focus on a faraway pine. “I don’t want gifts out of guilt. I have you,” she says evenly. “That’s what I wanted.”

She has struck him speechless. She didn’t think it could be done. It doesn’t sit well. 

So, she turns on her heel and heads back to the den, trying to decide if she feels better or worse than she did an hour ago. He doesn’t come in until much later, when their quarters are dark with simulated night. She feigns sleep when he slips into bed, and curls his arm over her middle. 

When she does wake from her restless sleep the next morning, he isn’t there. 

{5}

“I messed up,” Sienna says to Indigo after a particularly fierce training session. 

The two women sit on the mats at the side of the room, watching as Lake and Riordan go through a routine, Drew marking them for accuracy. It’s been three days since the lingerie incident, and though she and Hawke seem perfectly normal on the surface, the tension along the bond is eating her alive. 

Indigo blows out a heavy breath, wiping her brow with a towel. “Thought so. You two are wound up so fucking tight.”

Sienna unplaits and replaits her braid, keeping her nervous fingers busy. “You know about the gifts.”

“Talk of the den, really.”

“I – I told him to stop,” Sienna says hesitantly. 

Wetting her lips, Indigo picks up her water bottle and takes a long swallow. She doesn’t say a word, just fixes Sienna with a fierce gaze. 

“Because – it felt like guilt,” Sienna adds in a rush. “He feels guilty because he thinks he didn’t do it the right way, and I don’t – it doesn’t feel good to me. It just makes me remember how messed up everything was before.”

For days now, she’s been replaying the early years of her time in the den. Her fractured conditioning, Hawke’s utter resistance to have anything to do with her – cold even words in his office. _Stay out of my way while you’re here._ She knows he loves her violently – but the scars are just barely healing over from those tough years. The courting has brought it all back in a rush. They have been so utterly happy in their mating, in their survival, that she has barely given a thought to the strained path it took to get there. 

Now, she can’t think of anything else. 

“I understand,” Indigo says after a moment, slinging her towel around the nape of her neck. “I guess I don’t think that Hawke sees it that way.”

Scowling, Sienna kicks her feet out in front of her. “Wonderful.”

“Fights are natural, you know. Just because you’ve mated doesn’t mean you’re still not going to have disagreements,” Indigo says. 

“I know.” And Sienna does; Walker and Lara, as well suited as they are, have had their share of fights, as have Indigo and Drew. Riley and Mercy – at least before the pregnancy – seemed to thrive on the exhilaration of arguing. She knows Sascha and Lucas go toe-to-toe. But she and Hawke had such a bitter past before he decided to trust his wolf – every time they fight, she feels like she might lose him all over again. 

_Oh._

“I know that look,” Indigo murmurs. “People usually have to get shot for that look to occur.”

Pushing lightly at Indigo’s shoulder, Sienna scrambles to her feet. “Thank you for not telling me I’m nuts like everyone else would have,” she says after a moment. 

Shrugging, Indigo throws a towel at Sienna. “I was there for the whole torturous thing between you two. You both have been too busy throwing kissy faces at each other that you haven’t stopped to think about how it all fits together. I get it. Now, you just have to deal with the rest of it.”

Torturous is not a far-off descriptor. Sienna wipes her face and turns on her heel, headed for their quarters. She showers and changes, the black lace underwear on underneath her clothes. The lace is a pleasant sensation across her skin. After a moment’s thought, she pulls on one of his button-down shirts – a symbol, an envelopment in his scent. She heads to his office, her hair damp and loose down her back. 

Frustrated, she pokes her head into Riley’s office. “Where is he?” she asks. 

Riley blinks those dark steady eyes at her. “The cabin. Though, I’m not supposed to tell you that for another hour.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Can I take a car?”

“You two are even more of a handful now than you were before,” Riley says conversationally as he nods. 

“Just giving you practice before your sextuplets arrive,” she retorts. She doesn’t stay to see his ashen face, merely waving and heading for the garage. 

There are no cars parked outside their cabin. He must have run down in wolf form. Sienna parks with silent ease and slips from the car, her feet bare on the grassy floor of the forest. The cabin glows from within, the light too soft to be electric. Candles, she thinks, her heart in her throat. With the sun edging towards the edge of the horizon, the heat of the day fading into a cooler mountain evening, she takes a deep breath and walks to the front porch. 

When she opens the door, the sight of the cabin awash in candlelight meets her. A small table sits near the hearth, a white tablecloth draped over. A vase of roses sits in the middle, the flowers tilting their heads over the simple white bone china place settings. Music plays lightly, bluegrass – they are compromising on the country music, in ways. The bed is awash in rose petals, odd and romantic. She bites back a smile and shuts the door behind her, startling him in the kitchenette. 

“Hi,” she says. 

He glowers at her, gaze icy-blue. Pots and dishes surround him. “You’re really early. And not dressed.”

She can see the outlines of his black dress trousers from the edge of her gaze, the black t-shirt snug over his chest and shoulders. “I had an epiphany. Want to hear it?”

“I don’t know. Are you going to throw the flowers in my face?” he asks archly.

Rolling her eyes, she walks over towards him, leaning against the open wood framework leading to the kitchenette. “We never got a chance to talk about – everything,” she says after a moment of watching him. “The mating bond is one thing, but the – the courtship – “

“I know,” he says, voice heavy. There is a strain around his eyes she wants to soothe away. 

“We weren’t normal,” she says bluntly. “And that’s fine. I’m not a normal woman.”

“You’re better,” he says, eyes trailing over her. 

“Stop,” she mutters, cheeks flushing. “All I’m saying is that you don’t – you don’t have anything to make up for. It happened the way it was supposed to. That it happened at all is miraculous. So, I don’t need you to make everything a production for me after the fact. Because it feels weird, and it doesn’t feel like _us_.”

A sigh ripples through his body. She feels it through the mating bond. Setting down the bowls of food, he wipes his hand on a towel and crosses to her, taking her hands in his. “When I said you were right about the man being a coward, I wasn’t just talking about the mating bond,” he says, voice husky. “The wolf – the wolf always knew. I could have done things differently, done things _right_ – but I didn’t. And I feel like shit about it.”

She tips her head back, brow furrowing. “Well – all right – “

“You’re special to me,” he says quietly. “You’ve always been special to me. And I didn’t make that clear enough before.”

“I understand why,” she says softly, twining her fingers with his. His palm fits warmly against hers. “I don’t – I’m not mad at you for it.”

“Don’t you think you should?” he asks with a wry smile. 

“No,” she says, blinking. “Nature and nurture are hard to fight. We both did things dumbly.”

Shaking his head, he leans down to kiss her. “I don’t know how I got this lucky.”

Kissing him lightly, she drops one of his hands to stroke her hand through his hair. “I always knew the wolf liked me,” she says with a laugh in her voice. “It was always a matter of getting through your thick skull.”

“Such a romantic, you are,” he murmurs, biting at her bottom lip. “The man wants to make up for being a jackass. Hence the gifts.”

She sighs, fingers rubbing at the tense nape of his neck. “And wasn’t it just easier to tell me that as opposed to confusing the hell out of me?”

“You’re not supposed to tell a woman why she’s getting gifts, Sienna.”

“Again, I’m not every woman,” she points out, raising a brow. 

His hand curves to the small of her back, pulling her close to the warm heat of his chest. “Oh, I know.”

“And all this is supposed to be?” she asks as he heaves her up into his arms and carries her over to the bed. Her thighs wrap around his waist, holding her to him. 

“A romantic dinner for two.”

“I hope you didn’t cook,” she says with a laugh. 

“I asked Sascha,” he teases, tumbling them both down onto the bed. 

“You idiot,” she says affectionately, keeping her legs around his waist as he kisses the line of her neck, his hands stroking over the curves of her breasts and waist. 

“This was supposed to be dessert,” he murmurs, kissing her with a wet hot open mouth. 

She shivers and drags her nails down his back. “Lucky for us, I have about ten boxes of chocolate at home.”

His growl is a low vibration against her skin, and she can’t help but laugh, pulling his mouth up to hers for a long kiss. 

“Gifts are perfectly fine, Hawke,” she murmurs against his lips as he unbuttons the shirt from her chest with maddening slowness. “A girl just wants to know why she’s getting them.”

“You are so odd,” he mutters, peeling the shirt panels away from her chest. “Shit, Sienna.”

“Oh yeah. I threw on whatever was closest,” she says, batting her eyes innocently. “This okay?”

He sits up between her thighs and trails his fingers over her lace-covered breasts. “It looks even better than I thought it would,” he murmurs, the wolf heavy in his hot blue gaze. 

She squirms under his eyes, her hair spread out loose beneath her. “Glad you think so.”

Leaning over, he sucks a hard kiss in the valley between her breasts. “I love you,” he says, his hands moving to her jeans buttons. 

“I love you, too,” she says, voice soft. “Now, take off your pants.”

A feral grin curves his mouth. “Bossy.”

Her hands grip the fabric of his t-shirt and pull him down for a hot, wet kiss. “You like it,” she murmurs. 

Swearing under his breath, he goes for his pants buttons. “God help me, I do.”

There is very little talking, after that. Later, they do end up eating dinner, curled up in bed, picking rose petals off of their plates. 

“See how ridiculous this is?” she asks, plucking a petal from atop his steak and tossing it aside. 

“It’s _romantic_ ,” he counters. 

“It’s messy,” she retorts. 

He swears and leans into kiss her into silence. “You’re a brat.”

“Yours, though,” she murmurs, pushing his mouth away. “And I’m hungry.”

His eyes gleam wolf-blue as he grabs the half-empty plates and sets them on the ground. “So am I.”

*


End file.
